A Guide To Anger And Conflict Resolution
In the above Sally Forth comic strip, we learn from Ted that Sally had a fight with her sister. By the third panel, Ted begins to criticize Sally, saying she is coming off like a robot, and then he expresses his view that she had been kind of dismissive of her sister’s news about becoming engaged. In the last panel, I get the feeling that…
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Dealing with the frustration that goes along with challenging conflicts has some similarities to sailors dealing with stormy seas—it is best to utilize a well-rehearsed plan. For dealing with conflicts, one such plan begins with thinking of the word “DIG.” With a little practice, we can use this word to remind us of a simple way to summarize the conflict even in the midst of…
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“Are you going to vote for the new school facility plan, Marc?” “No, Phil. It calls for combining the two high schools in our town so that there will be nearly 2,000 students in the combined school. I prefer small schools. I say, keep them small, keep them personal.” Turning red and glaring into Marc’s eyes, Phil begins to holler, “What are you, stupid? We…
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Sometimes I’m asked why I write so much about dealing with criticism. The answer mostly has to do with the types of concerns that have been expressed to me over the years. Some involve the desire to be liked and respected. Others have to do with seeking to gain control over anger. And still others come from parents who find that how they go about…
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Readers of this blog well know that I often discuss immature and mature ways to provide negative criticism. Originally, I presented a post titled PROVIDING NEGATIVE CRITICISM: FIVE LEVELS OF MATURITY. There, in addition to providing an outline of what I believed was a good starting point to think about this topic, I asked readers for suggestions on how the outline could be improved. Many…
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Today I offer a follow-up to my earlier post titled “Name Calling by Psychiatrists: Is it Time to Put a Stop to it?” Among the points that I had tried to make is that psychiatrists falsely claim that the names they use to describe patients are “diagnoses.” In actuality, all that they do is convert someone’s expressed concerns into medical jargon. I received a great deal…
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On this blog, I often discuss immature and mature ways to deal with criticism. The advice that I offer is designed to be helpful to males and females alike. But recently, in an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, Tara Mohr argues that when it comes to criticism, women can benefit from advice specifically targeted to the unique cultural situation that they find themselves in. The…
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One day I happened to be flipping through the New York Times when I came upon a story titled Dealing With Digital Cruelty by Stephenie Rosenbloom. It had been a year since I had written a post about a particularly sad incident of internet cruelty. Back then, 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick had leaped to her death after being cyberbullied by a coterie of 15 middle-school children…
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Sometimes we observe people doing things that seem terribly wrong. We may then find, welling up from within, an urgent desire to provide negative criticism. In earlier posts, in an effort to provide some guidance on how to avoid expressing our concerns in a form that can potentially make a bad situation far worse, I provided a description of 5 levels of maturity for providing…
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Recently, I wrote a post titled, “Responding to Criticism by Crying: Is it a Sign of Immaturity?” In that post I explained that I had, in earlier posts, put forth a model of how to respond maturely to criticism. To help readers to rate their own skill level, and that of others, I had outlined five levels of maturity. Level 1 was viewed as the most immature level, level 2…
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